


The Power and Loneliness of the Desert

by Ellegrine



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Damian Wayne, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Bottom Jason Todd, Canon-Typical Violence, Courting Rituals, Courtship, Damian is 19, First Time, Floriography, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Knotting, Legal Murder, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mating, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Rituals, Minor Character Death, Never Repost My Work Anywhere, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Jason Todd, Omega Jason Todd Week 2020, Omega Verse, Serial Killers, Smut, Top Damian Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23605597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellegrine/pseuds/Ellegrine
Summary: Damian’s gaze slowly rakes over Jason. His smirk widens as he purrs,“Beautiful, as always.”A blush heats Jason’s cheeks. Damian thinks he’s beautiful? The Alpha Heir Prince of the al Ghul Empire finds Jason, an Omega from Gotham’s slums, beautiful?
Relationships: Damian Wayne/Jason Todd, Damian al Ghul/Jason Todd
Comments: 52
Kudos: 938
Collections: omega Jason Todd week 2020





	The Power and Loneliness of the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the sixth floriography meaning of the cactus flower.
> 
> This was written for Day Six of Omega Jason Todd Week 2020 for the prompt: Mated to a Villain, and also fills Day Three for the prompt: Courting.
> 
> A big thank you to WelshBaes for being my forensics expert and TheFightingBull for typo-checking.

A gentle breeze and whiff of Gotham-polluted air wakes Jason Todd from a dead sleep. There shouldn’t be a breeze in his bedroom; he always closes and locks the windows of whatever safehouse he’s staying in before going to sleep. It doesn’t matter how exhausted or injured he is. He was raised in the Narrows. He’s well aware that a locked window may cause just enough of a delay for someone to escape.

It’s a lesson he’s never forgotten.

He couldn’t even sleep in the supposed safety of Wayne Manor without double-checking the locks on his windows and bedroom door, back when he lived with Bruce Wayne.

Before Jason’s death.

Before everything that came after.

Jason clutches the gun underneath his pillow, cocks the hammer so he’s ready just in case, and takes a quick sensory-survey of the room. Everything seems the same as it did when he crawled into his nest, exhausted, at 4:23 a.m. following his shower after patrol.

A glance at the bright — too bright for how tired his eyes are, feeling like someone scraped sandpaper across them — green numbers on the clock says it’s 5:19 a.m. He hasn’t even been asleep an hour.

“What the hell?” he grumbles when he’s absolutely sure, after inhaling deeply, but slowly enough he can pretend he’s just breathing in his sleep, there are no foreign scents in his safehouse.

So unless someone wearing scent-blocking patches —

“Ugh. Of course.”

Jason sits up and drags the hand not holding the gun — because he’s not stupid enough to let go of it — down his face. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with the Bat Pack tonight, this morning, whatever. He’s not interested in their self-righteous speeches about how he needs to stop killing people. That just because it’s legal for Omegas to kill rapists and in the defence of pups doesn’t mean he should do it. That he can be so much better; he should prove that he’s above his base instincts and give people a chance to change.

“I don’t have the energy for this tonight,” Jason snaps. 

It’s been a long week. 

He just finished cracking a human trafficking ring that dealt in stolen pups, and Jason’s instincts are on a hair trigger. If one of the Bat Pack steps from the shadows and says a single condescending, well-meaning word about how Jason shouldn’t have killed seventeen people at the docks tonight, he’s not going to hold back.

Batman, Nightwing, neither of them had been there.

They hadn’t opened the shipping containers to find a massive pile of starving pups, smelling sick-terrified-hungry-bleeding.

Jason had gone feral and slaughtered everyone involved.

“If you’re here for an apology, you’re never getting one,” he growls, hands twitching with rage to such a degree he has to move his finger away from the trigger so he doesn’t fire his gun on accident. “I don’t regret it and I never will.”

Silence greets him.

Frowning, because Bruce and Dick would’ve surely mouthed off by now — they just can’t keep their opinions to themselves when they are sure that they know best — Jason gets out of his nest. He keeps the gun pressed to his right thigh as he scans the room again, more intently this time. He even goes so far as to check in the closet and adjoining bathroom, but there’s no one else there.

“What the hell?”

There’s no evidence anyone’s been in his safehouse either. It’s … eerie.

Jason is absolutely certain he shut and locked the window before going to sleep. And why in the world would someone open the window but not come in? It’s not like Dick and Bruce to respect his den when they feel the need to lecture him. It’s easily one of the most irritating things about them; they have no right to be in his space without his permission.

Finally, with the search having turned up nothing, Jason goes to the window. He heads for it at an angle, in case this is some bizarre assassination attempt by someone who somehow figured out he’s the Red Hood. The window is open an inch, letting in the slight breeze that woke him.

There’s a single cactus flower on the windowsill. 

Jason picks it up with shaking fingers.

The League of Shadows often leaves messages using floriography. Not many people know the language anymore, and won’t realize what’s being said even if they do. But Jason? He excelled at that part of the training when he was with the League, before returning to Gotham to kill the Joker and get his revenge.

Jason’s always loved classic novels. He had a solid basis of knowledge on the topic before Talia al Ghul and the League ever took him in.

A gentle smile curls his lips as he picks up the flower and breathes in its fragrance. It has several meanings, but with what the news must be reporting of the Red Hood’s actions on every channel, it’s obvious which one is meant by the single blossom.

_ Enduring all things, no matter how painful or difficult. _

Seeing pups like that — abused and in squalor — causes Omegas indescribable agony.

Jason closes and locks the window. He carries the cactus flower back to his nest and sets it on the pillow beside him as he tucks his gun away.

The physical proof that Damian al Ghul — Jason will never think of him as a Wayne; Damian is, thankfully, nothing like them — at least, approves of what Jason did soothes his nerves.

His Prince thinks he acted justly.

That’s enough to lull Jason into a vindicated, well-earned sleep.

* * *

Jason grinds against the Alpha behind him. It takes every trick he’s learned to fake his scent into aroused-hungry-available. He wants nothing more than to rip the hands off him. The bastard rutting against him is smart, but Jason’s smarter.

Like almost every Alpha Jason’s ever met, he can’t resist the sight of Jason’s unmarked neck.

Jason came to the club — Fahrenheit 451, which only lets in people hot enough they’ll make you burn — in jeans so fitted it took him twenty minutes to get them on, and no shirt. Sweat is trickling down his chest and abs. The Alpha’s hands slip on his skin.

The music is too loud; Jason's ears hurt. And the flashing lights and overwhelming stench of aroused people is making him nauseous.

This isn’t his scene.

If he wasn’t on a mission, Jason wouldn’t be in a place like this at all. He would much rather be curled up in his nest or on a couch reading a novel.

He’s worth so much more than an easy lay.

Jason spent way too much of his life protecting himself to roll over and give it up for any Alpha who comes sniffing after him. He deserves better than to be some Alpha’s temporary knot decoration.

The Alpha licks up the side of Jason’s neck.

He loses control of his scent for just a split second, dropping hatred-disgust into the air. But, somehow, likely wrapped up in fantasies of stuffing his cock inside Jason, the Alpha doesn’t notice.

When the Alpha’s hand grabs his thigh and starts sliding up his in-seam, Jason tangles his fingers with the Alpha’s and smirks coyly over one shoulder. Because there’s no way he’s allowing that hand to travel any farther. Alphas don’t get to paw him there, not even to finish a case. Though, honestly, it’s not necessary. Not when the lightest tug on the Alpha’s hand has him following Jason though the crush of other bodies to the back door of the club.

They step out into the alley and the Alpha growls, “On your knees, Omega.”

Jason sinks to his knees on the revolting asphalt, covered in suspicious stains that even the downpours Gotham is occasionally known for haven't washed away. 

The Alpha grabs Jason by the hair with one hand while he reaches for his belt buckle with the other. “I’ve wanted your mouth since I walked in the club.”

The door clicks shut.

Jason slides the small pocket knife out of his front pocket and stabs the Alpha right in the femoral artery as he chokes on desperate-desire. A grin curls his lips as that changes instantly to white-hot-agony.

The Alpha screams.

But this is Gotham. No one comes running to help.

Jason stands up as the Alpha collapses to his knees. Whimpering gasps spill from his lips. Jason can’t help but wonder if that’s what the six pups this monster murdered sounded like when he killed them.

He steps behind the Alpha to use him as a meat shield, so the monster’s filthy blood won’t get on him, and then twists the knife and rips it out of his thigh. 

_ Blood sprays everywhere. _

Jason watches as the Alpha bleeds out, old-pennies-copper so thick in the air he can taste it on his tongue. He doesn’t look away as the serial killer dies. It takes less than five minutes.

He might not have been able to save the six pups the Alpha already killed, but he’s ensured the bastard will never be able to kill another.

And that — Jason has to let that be enough, or he’ll lose his mind.

The softest of thumps sounds behind him; it might as well be a gunshot for how loud it is in comparison to a regular vigilante landing. The silence that follows the sound tells Jason exactly who it is.

Damian.

Neither Bruce nor Dick would be able to witness this and not immediately express their disappointment in his choices.

Jason feels the lightest tug on the back pocket of his jeans, but Damian’s fingers don’t touch his butt at all in the process. He glances over his shoulder and realizes he has to look up at Damian now. Nineteen years old, a tank of an Alpha, and he’s still growing. He’s probably taller than Bruce now, which must be driving the Bat Pack Alpha insane.

Bruce loves to loom over them while lecturing. He can’t loom over someone taller than him; just trying it will make him look like an upstart Alpha teenager. 

Oh, Jason would pay money to see that happen.

_ “Beautiful knife-work, as always,” _ Damian says in League Dialect, smirking. 

_ “Thank you, my Prince,” _ Jason replies.

Damian’s gaze slowly rakes over Jason. His smirk widens as he purrs, _ “Beautiful, as always.” _

A blush heats Jason’s cheeks. Damian thinks he’s beautiful? The Alpha Heir Prince of the al Ghul Empire finds Jason, an Omega from Gotham’s slums, beautiful?

Before he can figure out what, if anything, to say in response, Damian’s already grappled to the roof. Jason can’t help but notice that his new uniform — Corvus, black and dark green — fits exceptionally well in _ all the right places. _

Jason shivers from heat, not cold, and absently reaches back to touch the pocket Damian tugged on. His fingers brush across something soft. He carefully removes the flower — for what else can it be, feeling like that? — from his pocket.

It’s another cactus flower.

His pulse races, because, again, he knows exactly what it means in these circumstances.

_ Lust and sexual attraction. _

Jason’s hands shake as he realizes that Damian is formally courting him, League-style. He presses the flower to his chest as he loses complete control of his scent and drops a bomb of awed-ecstatic-joy into the night air.

_ “The Prince considers me worthy.” _

It’s the best news he’s had all year. And nothing, not even Nightwing dropping in front of him with a frown twisting his perfect face can ruin Jason’s mood.

This?

It’s absolutely worth being “caught at the scene of the crime” and a lecture. It’s worth listening to Nightwing’s gentle cajoling to change his ways and come home. It’s worth the disappointment screaming from Batman’s body language when he appears in the alley as well.

Because a _ worthy _ Alpha’s finally expressed serious interest in him.

For the first time in his life, Jason doesn’t feel like he’s being measured by where he was whelped. An Alpha has finally acknowledged that Jason is worth more than a casual screw in an alley.

_ That _ is priceless.

* * *

Jason hisses in pain as he staggers into the nearest Bat Pack safehouse. It’s not even his. Anyone could drop in at any time. But with how heavily the gunshot wound in his left leg is bleeding — like a stuck pig considering it’s just a graze; every time it starts to clot he has to move, and that rips it open again — it’s not wise to travel the extra distance to one of his own safehouses.

As much as he would love to hole up somewhere none of the others know about and go completely off-grid for the next couple of days, Jason can’t chance it.

“Hell.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes deeply after locking the door and collapsing back against it. He just needs to rest a moment. Just a moment. Then he’ll be strong enough to hobble to the bathroom and pull out the first aid kit and sew himself up.

Protective-rage-worry lashes across the room.

Jason’s eyes snap open to the sight of Damian dropping a scent-blocking patch on the floor. He’s peeling off his dark green domino mask with the other hand, revealing viciously bright green eyes. 

“How did you know?” Jason rasps.

This isn’t how he wants Damian to see him, injured and weakened. He never wants to present a weak front to this Alpha. Jason doesn’t want to be a stereotype, doesn’t want Damian to change his mind. Because an Omega that _ needs _ protection because he’s too weak to protect himself is a burden.

The League of Shadows doesn’t approve of burdens.

“Nothing happens to you without my knowledge, Beloved,” Damian states.

Jason smirks. That might bother other Omegas, but it doesn’t put him off in the slightest. It might be called “stalking” in modern vernacular, but it wasn’t so long ago that Alphas proved their dedication by tracking and hunting Omegas to learn of them and watch over them.

He removes a cactus flower blossom from his utility belt and offers it to Jason cupped in the palms of his hands.

_ Protection from danger and threats. _

Jason removes his own scent-blocking patch and lets his scent answer for him: grateful-trust.

By the time Jason has made it over to the couch and collapsed on it, Damian is returning with the first aid kit. Jason’s wondering if he has the energy to remove the pants of his uniform — they’re a total loss; it’s good he has so many pairs — when Damian kneels before him.

“Damian?” Jason gasps, unable to believe his eyes.

With the second cactus flower, Jason had known Damian was courting him formally. Yet, Jason hadn’t even dared to imagine in his wildest fantasies that he would ever have the al Ghul Prince kneeling before him.

Damian stares right into Jason’s eyes and says, “You have my word, Beloved, that I won’t touch your skin. Allow me to assist in this manner.” He holds up a knife that’s sharp enough to cut through Jason’s pants.

Jason swallows and tries not to picture Damian cutting off his pants and the boxers underneath. He mostly succeeds, but a small waft of desire drifts into the air. Damian smirks in response and hunting-hunting-almost-victory reaches Jason’s nostrils.

“All right,” Jason says, utterly failing to keep the huskiness out of his voice.

True to his word, Damian slices through Jason’s pants. The unsharpened edge of the knife kisses along his calf and thigh as the material parts like water in the wake of the blade. It should not be arousing. But, hell, Jason’s already hard. He shudders as Damian slides the knife counter-clockwise against his skin and removes the pant leg entirely; it falls to the floor.

Damian closes his eyes and inhales deeply. Jason watches, mesmerized, as Damian licks the roof of his mouth, as if he’s tasting the bouquet of Jason’s arousal. It makes his cock _ ache _ in his pants.

“Oh, how you tempt me, Beloved,” Damian says, before standing abruptly.

If Damian were any other Alpha, if this wasn’t a League-style courtship, Jason would end the night knotted. But this _ isn’t _ any other Alpha, and this _ is _ a League-style courtship, and Jason will do _ nothing _ to lose that.

“I’ll prepare a meal. Tend to your wound,” Damian commands before walking to the kitchen.

Jason cleans the bullet graze, leaking contentment despite the pain. And with every stitch, every prick of the needle in and out of his flesh, his heart races faster.

Because dreams don’t hurt like this, and that means it’s real.

Jason watches Damian chopping vegetables with enviable speed and precision in the kitchen and decides, then and there, that he’ll do absolutely anything to keep this. He’s not going to screw this up.

He can’t.

If he does, it’ll destroy him. 

* * *

Jason steps into his apartment — his actual apartment that no one is supposed to know about — and drops his grocery bags on the floor. He hears the eggs crack and the pasta bag burst open. If he’s not terribly lucky, his milk carton has split and is now leaking into the plastic bags.

He walked right into a wall of cardamom-steel.

Damian is in his apartment … and it smells like he rubbed his scent glands over _ everything. _

There’s only one possible explanation. 

Jason’s hands shake with desire and excitement as he pulls his shirt over his head and drops it on the floor. He kicks off his shoes and socks and strips off his jeans as well. His boxer briefs dampen as he walks to his bedroom. His heart picks up speed and heat races through his blood.

If he weren’t soaking wet already between his legs by the time he got to his bedroom, the sight that met his eyes would have accomplished it.

Damian is nude, stretched out in Jason’s nest, gorgeous golden skin on display. He’s lounging against gold and green pillows that set him off to perfection. His thick cock is hard and leaking small droplets onto his abs, falling like dew onto the petals of a cactus flower blossom.

_ “Beloved,” _ Damian purrs.

_ “My Prince,” _ Jason whispers.

Because that’s what this is. This is the al Ghul Prince exercising his right to enter the nest of an Omega that has League ties. It’s his right to seek pleasure. But it’s that he did it after a formal courtship, that he never laid a hand on Jason’s skin after offering the first flower, that has Jason awed-humbled-cherished. 

Damian’s not here to slake his desire; he’s here to Mate Jason.

If Jason allows it.

Any Omega in the League has the right to refuse any Alpha their body. Every Omega knows that, has it drilled into them. Yet, they all also know that to turn away an Alpha once is to turn away the Alpha forever.

“I’m never going to stop killing people who deserve it. B and Dick will object. They’ll say you can do so much better for a Mate than a villain.”

“Their will is not my own.”

Jason walks over to the edge of his nest and holds out both hands. Just a moment later, Damian releases the cactus flower without touching him; it floats down to land on Jason’s right palm.

_ Chastity and abstinence from physical contact. _

Decision made — he made the decision weeks ago in an alley behind a club; who’s Jason kidding? — Jason rips the flower apart and lets the petals fall from his hands to drift down into the nest.

A primal growl rumbles from Damian’s throat as his pupils consume the green of his eyes. His scent spikes with possessive-desire-need.

_ “I would have you, Beloved.” _

Jason skims out of his underwear and enters the nest. Without a moment’s hesitation, he kneels over Damian’s lap, wraps his hand around Damian’s silken-hot cock, lines himself up, and sinks all the way down on it.

It’s a tight fit, but Jason manages.

Pleasured-disbelief pours off Damian as he stares at Jason. He strokes Jason’s unmarked neck, brushing a thumb over Jason’s swollen Mating gland. _ “Beloved, you —” _

_ “I trust your honor, my Prince,” _ Jason says. Because he believes with everything he is that Damian won’t use him and then walk away.

Damian grabs Jason’s hips with a bruising grip and grinds up into him. Jason throws his head back and keens. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to lose the thick fullness that makes him feel so complete; he’s finally not empty. But even more than he doesn’t want to give that up, Jason _ wants _Damian’s knot.

Jason slowly rises up Damian’s cock, thigh muscles flexing and trembling already from the stretch of the angled position. This isn’t going to last long at all. But it will sure as hell be glorious. Whines fall from his lips as he rides his Prince.

He drinks in the scent of their Mating.

Damian’s drowning him in cardamom-steel and sweat-slick-hunger. 

_ “Beloved,” _ Damian growls, raw need in his voice as he arches his hips and thrusts his cock back up into Jason, as if he can’t tolerate even the three inches Jason eased up to be outside the heated clutch of Jason’s body.

It’s better than Jason imagined it would be as he touched himself in various nests as the courtship progressed. Messier, too, but that’s okay. Damian can get him even dirtier in the shower later before cleaning him up.

Jason chases Damian’s knot, milking the cock inside him with his muscles again and again as he teases it out. He wants it. Jason wants to know how it feels to be knotted and bound and _ kept. _

He grinds down on Damian’s lap, circles his hips, and then snarls with all his teeth on display, “Give me your knot!”

Damian gives it to him.

And when Jason’s falling apart on Damian’s knot, hot seed filling him, endorphins flooding his body, Damian drags him down and bites through Jason’s Mating gland. The pleasure-pain of it, as well as the Mate-Bond snapping into existence between them, sends Jason into another orgasm, though it’s gentler this time.

He collapses against his Alpha’s — hell, he has an Alpha; he finally has an Alpha Mate! — chest and keens as the knot tugs slightly. He adjusts his hips and laps at the sweat on Damian’s skin. It’s a sensory salt-bomb.

Damian unhinges his jaw and kisses Jason’s forehead with blood-wet lips.

_ “You were exquisite.” _

Embarrassed-delight combats and utterly fails to overpower the scent of their Mating as Jason answers, _ “You were as well, Alpha.” _

Damian’s arms wrap around Jason as possessiveness and protectiveness enter the scent-pile. His thumbs trace Jason’s hip bones, as if he’s outlining Jason’s womb.

He buries a smile in his Alpha’s neck and breathes, _ “Someday you’ll owe me another flower.” _

Damian’s grip tightens fiercely as he promises, _ “When you are ready, Beloved.” _

Jason stares at the single flower petal that’s stuck to Damian’s body with sweat and grins. Not today. Probably not any time soon. 

_ Warmth and care, especially from a mother to a child. _

But — someday, for sure.


End file.
